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Question: Is it worth asking for email address as a field on the join form? I was suprised to see this on one group and wondered if meetup.com kept email addresses from organizers. This would make life tough in cases like the following:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4754269 (Hacker News Meetup Cologne Hostile Takeover)

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Meetup has a messaging system so they don't have to give out email addresses.

Anecdotal: I never enter my email address on meetup group registrations because it seems weird that they would ask for it since they can already message me. I think it's also because so many organizers have abused meetup.com groups and meetup.com itself, despite millions of users, looks shady.

I always enter my email address on an Eventbrite event though.

I don't think so. Meetup will ask them and provide a mailing list so reaching them is possible while still maintaining their privacy.

You can, of course, ask them for anything and see if they offer.

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